Lose Control
by Dizzy-Dreamer
Summary: Sasha Belov was an expert in self-destruction. AU from worlds trials mid-season 2. (T for language in future chapters.)
1. i something told me to run

_This is the longest piece I have ever completed. This has been with me for three weeks and it's become my baby- affectionately referred to as ANGSTBUCKET for reasons which (I hope) will become evident in future chapters. In the meantime I'd like to say right here, right now: thank you to my husband for understanding when i started yelling at fictional characters, to sarah for being the best friend a girl could ask for and to kayla for pretty much everything else. I own none of this._

_This is what I imagine a mother feels like when her baby goes off to school for the first time._

* * *

_i. something told me to run  
__there were sounds in my head—  
__little voices whispering that  
__I should go & this should end,  
__oh and I found myself listening  
__-where I stood; missy higgins__  
_

He felt a familiar stirring in his lower abdomen as she pirouetted across the beam. He swallowed hard. _This is ridiculous. _He glanced at the clock – already 9AM. He turned back to see her dismount perfectly, landing ramrod straight with her arms in the air. She grinned at him, a wide-eyed, full-faced grin he knew she couldn't control even if she tried.

"Excellent, Payson," he called. "Five more and take ten minutes." He took the steps up to his glass-walled office two at a time, thankful it was empty. He scoffed as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the steaming jug in the corner, the barest hint of bitterness and disbelief in his expression. He knew she wouldn't take a break. If it were eleven years ago and he was still competing, he would have, quite arrogantly, called her the female version of himself and invited her—not so subtly- back to his hotel room at any and every event or competition they happened to attend together.

He was proven right as he watched the action in the gym from his elevated office; Payson completed her routine six more times, stopped just long enough for a cup of water and then moved over to work on her floor routine. Sasha shook his head with a rueful smile and took a sip of hot coffee. Convincing Payson Keeler to take a break was impossible.

He moved to his desk and reclined in his chair. For the first time in months, he allowed his mind to drift over the last eighteen months, his time in Colorado and his relationship with his Rock girls. He knew there was something special about those girls before he arrived in Boulder. He wouldn't have left Cambria for just any team – this team was special. This was a team he truly believed in—a once-in-a-lifetime kind of team for any coach—and one team member in particular believed in him. He wasn't surprised that Payson was the one to lead the other athletes outside to convince him to stay. Even before meeting her, Payson's drive to succeed and ability to lead her team to victory after victory was something he admired and he recognised it in her the way he had felt it himself as a young, competitive gymnast.

What surprised him was the ease of their relationship. In all his years in the sport, the only time he had ever experienced such a strong, effortless rapport was in his relationship with his own coach, Nikolai—although even that paled in comparison to the bond he had come to share with Payson. Payson had drive and determination by the bucket-load and she challenged him in ways no other gymnast dared. Her quest for perfection rivalled his and her work ethic stunned him into silence every day when she arrived at the gym, bright-eyed and ready to work at half past five in the morning, a full hour and a half before the rest of her team. He appreciated how elusive satisfaction was for her; even when he was pleased with her routines, she would always find something she felt she could improve and she wouldn't stop until she had.

He treated her as an equal and worked with her as a partner; over the year and a half they had trained together, he had come to consider her a friend. Watching her get hurt broke him more than he cared to admit. There was guilt – lots of guilt – and anger on her behalf at the cruel and premature death of her dreams, but the most overriding feeling of all was fear. With Payson's gymnastics career over and her flat out refusal to even consider assisting him as a coach, she had no reason to be at The Rock anymore. More than anything he had ever felt, Sasha was terrified of losing her from his life – he never imagined she could slip away just as easily as she captured him in the first place.

The night of her vault—her first foray into gymnastics following the ground-breaking operation to repair her fractured spine—Sasha prayed for the first time. When she kissed him—high on exhilaration from a newly-complete routine—it took all of his strength, physical and mental, to push her away. When she performed a flawless floor routine at Worlds Trials and was voted onto the team without even having qualified (and then told him she wanted a do-over because she wasn't happy with her extensions), Sasha felt on top of the world. Not even coaching three elite gymnasts onto the National team could hold a candle to his pride in Payson, his impossible, incorrigible, unstoppable girl.

"Is everything okay, Sasha?" Kim Keeler's voice broke him free from his thoughts. She dumped her purse on the desk opposite his and started to flip through the piles of papers that had begun to build in the in-tray. Sasha swallowed hard, trying to rid himself of the dryness in his mouth. He couldn't look Kim in the eye. How could he tell his office manager he had spent the morning torturing himself over his relationship with her teenage daughter?

This had long surpassed ridiculous. It was now well and truly into the realms of inappropriate. Sasha Belov was a man obsessed and he knew it had to end. He smiled tightly and nodded at Kim before stepping out onto the stairs and sliding the glass door shut behind him.

"This ends," he murmured to himself. "This ends tonight."

* * *

_to be continued._


	2. ii once that fire gets going

_ii. once that fire gets going there's no way to slow it down  
__I can't afford to let you go  
__& I'm afraid to draw you near;  
__I could get so lost in you that I might disappear  
__-hide your matches; julianne hough__  
_

He wrote her a letter. His mind—so full of desperation and inappropriate fantasies surrounding the pint-sized firecracker he knew was still in the gym just feet away, relentlessly flinging her body around the uneven bars—raced a mile a minute and with paper in front of him, mother tongue swirled with adopted tongue as words fell from his pen in a glorious mess of ink blots and diacritics.

_Dragă Payson,_ he wrote. _Dear Payson._

_I wish I were strong enough to stay in Boulder and tell you this in person – but then, if I were strong enough to remain in Boulder, nothing in this letter would need to be said. I am not strong, so by the time you read this, I will be gone. Îmi pare ră. I am so sorry. _

_Do you remember I once told you how you would inspire your team? You told me that I inspire you, and Payson, **you **inspire **me**. You have inspired me in a hundred ways, dragostea mea, and that is one of the reasons I had to leave._

_There are many things I have done for which I will never forgive myself: two gymnasts in my care have been hurt, and now I have broken my promise to you. I can't be the one to take you all the way to London, dragostea mea, but you will get there, of that I am certain. You will be there on the top step, more gold medals than your hands can hold, and you will get there because you, Payson Keeler, are a champion._

_Cred în tine, Payson. I believe in you._

_Take care of yourself, dragostea mea,_

_Sasha_

Payson and Emily had stayed late to work on Emily's bars routine and Sasha left them to it, retreating to his office to sign his name on the small pile of papers Kim had left beneath a 'sign me' post-it on his desk. He scrawled her name in green ink on an envelope and left it tucked into the front of Kim's computer screen, front and centre of the desk where he knew it would be picked up and delivered immediately. By the time he had dealt with the paperwork and left the office, the gym was empty and Payson had even switched off all but the door lights on her way out. He flicked the final switch before closing the door behind him.

The following morning, Sasha unlocked the doors to the gym ten minutes before he knew Payson would arrive. Then, he hooked his trailer to his truck and drove away, gripping the steering wheel white-knuckle tight with both hands.

He drove past the edge of her neighbourhood on his way out of town and his chest ached, a deep chasm opening and eclipsing everything in sight. He drove all day, making only one stop for a bottle of water and a tank of gas. Night had fallen by the time he guided his truck up the worn mud trenches outside the familiar cabin. The deceptively spacious stone cabin had always been his hideout. It was secluded; hidden at the end of a long path and surrounded by woodland, there wasn't another house around for miles—just the way he liked it. The last thing he felt like doing was interacting with people.

He unfolded himself from the driver's seat slowly, all tense muscles and stiff joints from sitting in a driving position for the last eighteen hours. The drive had been long and uneventful and the roads unusually clear; he'd had little to do but think about Boulder and swallow down the ache in his throat when he thought of all he'd just left behind. He imagined Payson's face as he stretched his tired body, he wondered how she had responded to the letter he had left. He imagined she wouldn't have taken it well—his heart broke a little at the thought and he hated himself for—he presumed—making her cry.

With a steely resolve, he grabbed his bags from the back seat of the truck and headed inside. The cabin was just as he left it: a newspaper on the table, a mug drying on the draining board, a fishing rod propped up against the back door. He moved into the bedroom where a pile of newspaper cuttings sat centre stage on the nightstand; he noticed them as he threw his bags carelessly onto the bed, flinging his body after them with a soft _thud_. He grabbed the top piece of paper. Her face, three years younger, beamed at him from faded newspaper, the accompanying article naming her the junior national champion at thirteen – she was already out-performing the senior elite athletes. He growled low in his throat. He had come to Cambria to get her out of his head. He scrunched the paper into a ball in his fist and threw it at the waste basket across the room. It missed. The second piece, an article about Lauren Tanner, followed, and the third article about the gym was torn in two before thrown, separately, and landing squarely in the bin.

Suddenly exhausted from a day of driving and self-inflicted emotional torture, Sasha kicked off his shoes, swung his legs up onto the bed and curled into the foetal position. He fell asleep almost instantly, still fully clothed, and dreamt of blonde hair, blue eyes and the most graceful tumbling passes he'd ever seen.

(xoxo)

Payson had never felt such conflicting emotions. She had broken her back and lost her dream, then had delicate, risky surgery to repair her back and her dream—and all of it paled in comparison to how she felt reading the letter she clutched in a shaking hand. She raised her stricken face to meet her mother's confused, concerned eyes, then spun on a heel and fled the office.

It was still early enough for the gym to be relatively empty; only two other athletes were working on conditioning circuits. She ran through the gym, grabbing her gym bag on the way, and barrelled straight through the doors to her car. Kim followed and suddenly realised the excellent foresight she and Payson had had to drive separate cars to the gym that morning as Payson sped out of the parking lot, tyres screeching against asphalt as she flung the car out onto the road.

She had no idea where she was driving until she was halfway there—an hour and a half from Boulder and still another hour and a half from the gymnastics camp she had attended as a child, Payson found herself cutting across two lanes at once to the exit, ignoring the tooted horns of other drivers. The road to camp held a comforting familiarity. It was at that camp that dreams had been realised and promises had been made and the serenity of the log cabins surrounded by acres of woodland was the one thing Payson's addled mind craved most.

She threw the car in park as soon as it stopped rolling and leapt out, barely remembering to lock the doors behind her as she ran a familiar path through the woodland to the tree she, Kaylie, Lauren and Emily had carved their initials into. She slumped beside the tree when she reached it and hot tears spilled down her cheeks. Her chest heaved with heavy sobs as she finally released the emotions that had been building since she'd entered the gym parking lot that morning to find Sasha's truck and trailer missing and the gym unlocked and devoid of her coach. The only full, conscious thought in her mind was this: _'this hurts more than breaking my back.'_

(xoxo)

Sasha tried for the fifth time to attach his bait to the end of his fishing rod. His hands shook uselessly, rebelliously, and he threw both items to the ground in frustration.

"Control, Belov," he hissed bitterly under his breath. He needed to control himself. He knew that was precisely the reason he had returned to Cambria—he _couldn't _control himself and an out-of-control coach would only lead his athletes into trouble. That kind of trouble was a kind he could never allow.

He couldn't control himself around _Payson_. The other girls were just his athletes; smart, incredibly talented and determined athletes whom, under any other circumstance, he would have been honoured to coach all the way to the Olympics. Their team mate, however, had become all that and more to him—she was once the funny, smart, incredibly talented and determined athlete who had lured him almost single-handedly to the gym and she had quickly become his friend, his equal and his challenger—Sasha Belov had developed feelings for Payson far beyond the kind any coach should have for his athlete and he could no longer control himself in her presence. For the greater good—for his sake and more importantly, her career—he had left the gym, but he knew, as he crouched to retrieve the bait and his fishing rod from the floor of the forest, he had also left _her _behind.

He fished for an hour and caught nothing. His heart wasn't really in it—every throw of the hook into the water was lacklustre and the one time he felt a pull on the wire, he wound it in so slowly that whatever had bitten had more than enough time to get bored and swim away. Tired of sitting and waiting for a fish to bite, he abandoned his fishing rod at the back door of his cabin and stood just inside the kitchen, looking around for inspiration. He needed something to occupy his mind. He cleaned, first to take his mind off The Rock and again to remind himself why he had left—he tried to consider it a cleansing opportunity, a way to rid himself of the improprietous thoughts that had plagued him for several months.

Other than fishing and cleaning—and once he'd cleaned the cabin twice, it was as spotless as it would ever be, so cleaning again, he decided, was a waste of time—Sasha found himself with little to do and he wondered how he had managed to live here for five years with so little in the way of entertainment. Although he held an internet subscription, signal was patchy at best and his computer was old and close to decrepit. He hadn't owned a television since before he had moved to Boulder. The cabin's second bedroom housed his small library of classic literature—mostly Romanian—sports biographies and a small pile of fantasy novels he had acquired, although he couldn't remember how or when. That room, furnished with a second-hand, red velvet-upholstered armchair and a second-hand wooden coffee table, was Sasha's destination. He strode with purpose down the hallway, past his bedroom, and pushed open the door.

The room was dusty—being mostly unused and often forgotten, it had managed to escape his frenzied cleaning—but its smell was one of his favourites; old paper and memories filled his senses as he ran an index finger gently across the spines of neatly-arranged books on shelves. He selected a book at random, determined to read it cover to cover before moving on to another—anything to forget.

* * *

**Translations:**  
_Dragă Payson – Dear Payson  
__Îmi pare ră – I'm sorry  
__Dragostea mea_ – _my love  
__Cred în tine – I believe in you  
_thank you, india, for translating my vague english ideas into perfect romanian words._  
_

* * *

_to be continued._


	3. iii loved too much, dived too deep

_iii. you loved her too much & dived too deep.  
__only know you've been high when you're feeling low,  
__only hate the road when you're missing home,  
__only know you love her when you let her go.  
__-let her go; passenger.__  
_

Payson didn't realise she had fallen asleep until she was woken by her mother, nearly hysterical, surrounded by what looked to be half of Boulder's police department who had tracked the signal from her phone. Groggy and confused with a pounding headache and a stiff neck from crying herself to sleep against a tree stump, Payson grunted and pushed herself off the floor, limping with stiff legs back to her car, supported by her mother's arm.

"He wrote a letter, mom," she whimpered. "He left me and now all I have is a letter."

"Payson…" Kim sighed, at a loss for words. Her daughter was devastated by Sasha's disappearance, but she too was concerned—Sasha had been a good friend to her through difficult times and as well as being angry with him for leaving, she was frustrated with herself for not seeing it coming. She had realised far too late that he had been restless in recent days, distracted and often curt in his interactions. "I'm sure he has his reasons…"

"I tried calling him and he's out of range or just not picking up. This is all my fault, mom, he left because of me—because I got hurt."

"Oh, Pay, you can't blame yourself for this. Sasha's a big boy, he knows better than—well, almost _anyone _that people get hurt in this sport—for crying out loud, Payson, his injury ended his own career too, remember?" Kim squeezed her daughter's shoulders and wondered, not for the first time, if all the whispers about Payson's relationship with her coach had any truth to them at all. "Besides, you're doing so well now—this is not your fault, Pay." To Kim, Payson's words were like a fist squeezing her heart. To see her daughter so desperately upset once was harrowing, but to see it twice—in the space of just a few months—was nothing short of heartbreaking.

(xoxo)

Fishing was no longer an option. Fishing required patience and little thought and although Sasha had an abundance of time, fishing was a still and quiet activity and still and quiet led to thinking. Sasha wanted to do anything but think—he knew there was only one thing—one _girl—_he would think about and she was the one he could not allow himself to think about. After a day of reading, having devoured two full novels and made a start on a third, the inactivity was beginning to make Sasha twitch. He found himself reading the same paragraph over and over; in the middle of a scene, his mind would wander to sparkling cider in plastic champagne flutes in the same delicate, calloused hands that had fit so perfectly on his shoulders when she kissed him—

He slammed the book shut and left it on the chair behind him. He had read _Dracula _eighteen times before and the ending had never changed yet—leaving it until tomorrow wouldn't make a difference. He knew his favourite novel by heart now anyway.

He stuffed his feet into a pair of chunky walking boots and pulled a jacket from the suitcase he hadn't yet unpacked. Although spring had sprung in California, temperatures on the coastal cliffs of Cambria hadn't quite reached the same dizzying highs of sixty degrees that the rest of the town was experiencing. It was fifteen minutes later, having hiked his way through the woodland surrounding his cabin and out onto the cliffs, that Sasha tugged the sleeves of the jacket down over his hands in an effort to retain as much warmth as he could. The wind blowing in from the ocean was particularly biting and he turned his face away from the horizon, down at the logo emblazoned across the chest of his jacket—only to realise it was his 'coach' jacket from the previous year's national championships. He fought the primal urge to rip it from his body and hurl it into the choppy water below him. That championship should have been one of the highlights of his coaching career: three of his elite athletes were named to represent their country on the national team and one of them was named national champion—the best in the country, because of his coaching. He should have been thrilled. It was, however, one of the low points—one of his lowest days, he had long considered it. That was the day Payson broke her back—the day he watched her face as she lost her grip on the bar knowing a split second before she fell that her routine would not end well, and the day a tight knot formed in his stomach. He felt that knot twist now, flooding his psyche with guilt and regret and all those memories of Emilia he thought he had buried long ago in Bucharest. He had thought of Emilia often since Payson's accident, old wounds opening and familiar sensations of guilt smothering him like a blanket.

For the first few days following Payson's fall, Sasha felt like the worst man on Earth—all he could think was _thank God she didn't die like Emilia—thank God Emilia was the one who died, thank God it wasn't Payson._ After Emilia's death, Sasha had retreated into a shell of a man, distant and detached. He coached hard and led a stoic team to a record-breaking medal haul at the Olympics, then he became reclusive, leaving behind the sport that had built him—until Steve Tanner offered him the best team he had ever seen, along with the chance to coach the most promising athlete he had ever seen. He'd let that athlete compete through the pain of a major injury and under his care, she had fractured her spine and quicker than he could blink, Payson's gymnastics career was over.

It wasn't really over, of course, hours online had turned into days researching the very best doctors in the world to consider Payson's injury and eventually, he had found one confident and available enough to treat her. The surgery had worked, and although it had taken much longer for Payson's confidence to heal, he had experienced the greatest joy of his career coaching her into the most beautiful, graceful and complete gymnast the sport had ever seen. He had shown her the beauty she couldn't see and under his watchful eye, she had married the brawn and beauty she possessed in spades, performing the most ethereal, emotionally-charged routines he had ever witnessed.

That emotional charge had been his undoing. Two hours of extra training and one flawlessly executed, emotionally-driven routine had led to the kiss and it was all Sasha could do to think about something other than how soft and pliant her lips felt against his and how the curves of his shoulders fit perfectly into the palms of her small hands. It was all his fault—he was the one who told her to let her emotions tell a story through her routine in the first place. He couldn't think long about Payson in any capacity before the knot in his stomach pulled itself tighter, deepening the empty ache in his chest that had opened up as he drove away from Boulder.

Sasha kicked at the dusty ground at the edge of the cliff. Standing at the edge of the ground made him feel as close to peaceful as he supposed he ever would. He had no intention of jumping, just standing, toes hanging over the lip of ground, kicking pebbles down into the ocean below. He closed his eyes and for a moment, he thought he could smell the sweet coconut scent of her shampoo on the Pacific breeze. Thoughts of her invaded his every sense; if he thought hard enough, he could feel soft skin over strong muscles beneath his hands as he helped her guide her body into new shapes.

He was right about inappropriate. He thought about the women he had been in relationships with—Ana, MJ, Summer—and the women who had been flings—far too many to name, if he knew their names in the first place, and most of them in the few months after the end of his relationship with MJ—and he realised, with a sudden jolt and a small stumble backwards, careful not to slip over the edge of the cliff—that he had never felt this way about any woman before. Somehow, between teaching her to cartwheel with full extensions, taking her to the ballet and encouraging her to pour all her feelings into her new Swan Lake-inspired floor routine, Sasha had fallen for his seventeen year old gymnast—and he had fallen hard.

Sasha had always been so sure of himself. He had never been one to talk about his feelings. He had acted on his feelings a number of times in a variety of different ways: sometimes by sleeping with women whose names he didn't know and never bothered to find out, sometimes by lashing out recklessly at the object of his anger—or anyone else who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes, he turned to his old friend scotch to drink the feelings into oblivion.

None of those things seemed like the best option right now. He'd kept himself closely guarded for a long time, an effort to prevent himself from slipping back into those old ways—he had too many good people in his life to risk hurting them like that. Although, he thought bitterly, he had just walked out on all of them. He longed for a glass of scotch. That old song played through his mind as he made his way back to his cabin, long strides easily closing the distance between the cliff tops and home—_you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone—_he didn't, not really, and he supposed he'd be paying the price for a long time yet. His mind once again turned to blue eyes and a bright smile. No one had ever affected him in this way before and he'd let her go before he'd even realised the depth of his feelings.

_Damn you, Belov_, he hissed, kicking at the stone wall of his cabin. _You complete idiot._

* * *

_to be continued._

* * *

AN: this chapter formed the entire basis of this story - i was in work on a super quiet day and this chapter's song came on the radio and the whole fanfic just laid itself bare for me.


	4. iv we can't undo the past

_iv. we can't undo the past  
__so I'm sorry for the million awful things I did and said  
__and I'm sorry for the things I could have said and done instead  
__and I'm sorry you won't spend each minute growing old with me.  
__-perfect; julia murney__  
_

Over the days and weeks following Sasha's departure, Payson said very little. She made just enough small talk with her team mates to hold off the intervention she knew they were one silence from staging and she conversed just enough with the assistant coaches to upgrade her skills and routines. This was a lifelong dream, damn it, and she would go to the Olympics with or without Sasha Belov.

At home—when she eventually left the gym for a few hours to eat in silence and lie awake in bed, tossing and turning until her early alarm—Payson's bedroom walls bared empty, bright patches where posters of Sasha had once hung proudly. She had torn them down in a fit of anger after she had followed Kim home from the gymnastics camp, before collapsing in tears and crying herself into a restless sleep. Later that evening, as Kim sat with their distraught daughter, Mark had rescued the screwed up pages from the waste bin and smoothed out the creases meticulously, folding them neatly and stashing them in the bottom of his closet, waiting for Payson's anger to subside.

Taking two weeks' leave from work in Minnesota was the easiest part. At the gym, Mark Keeler found himself seeking out Steve Tanner and he sighed; every other time he'd been at The Rock, he had studiously avoided the disgustingly rich, arrogant man. With Sasha gone, Steve was concerned about Lauren's training and voicing his opinions to anyone who would listen; it didn't take much pleading from Mark for him to hand over the address of the cabin he had visited to find Sasha a year and a half before. Mark left the gym, a small sheet of notepaper clenched in his fist, and pulled out his cell phone as he climbed into his car.

"Kim, I have an address in California. Yeah, Tanner barely argued—something about Lauren's DOD not going anywhere without him. It'll take me a day to get there and another back—I'll be gone a few days. I love you. Kiss the girls for me."

(xoxo)

"Belov!"

Sasha looked up. He had been crouched to the ground, tying his shoelace on his way out for what had become a daily walk across the cliffs. He had been so lost in his thoughts he hadn't even heard the engine cut out and the car door slam a few yards away. He swallowed thickly as he recognised the figure walking towards him—the very last person he expected to see—Mark Keeler. Mark didn't even give Sasha a chance to respond.

"You said you'd walk away if your presence was harming my daughter," he noted, recalling the conversation they'd had around his kitchen table just prior to the Worlds trials a few months ago. Sasha nodded, a headache beginning to form around his temples. "Was it?"

"You said yourself that it was," Sasha answered. His tongue felt thick and swollen in his dry mouth. "Payson told you it wasn't but maybe, maybe you were right all along."

Mark stepped forward, clenching and unclenching his fist by his side—a gesture not unnoticed by Sasha, who pulled back a little.

"Payson told me you believed in her, that you never gave up on her and that you were the best coach she has ever had." Mark's eyes narrowed as he addressed the man in front of him. He had once questioned Sasha's intentions and relationship with his daughter but he had been assured—by everyone around him—that he had nothing to be concerned about. Taking recent events into consideration, he wasn't so sure.

"I haven't given up on her. I believe in her," Sasha answered after a moment. His voice was dull to his ears, he sounded weak and pathetic, real life pushed out of the spotlight by thoughts of impropriety.

"Well, it sure as hell doesn't look like it," Mark continued, his voice getting louder with every word. "You left her, hell, you left _all _those girls without a coach, without an advocate—Olympic trials are in two weeks and the games are only a month away, Sasha. What in God's name are you playing at?" He had to make a conscious effort to keep his fists by his sides, rather than swinging at Sasha's face. Sasha looked at him, helpless, eyes empty but for the overwhelming sadness encompassing the blue. Mark's breath caught—maybe, he thought, this is just as hard for him as it is for everyone he's left behind.

"It's—it was best for everyone that I left," Sasha said carefully, after another moment of silence. He had spent long enough beating himself up for what had happened and he didn't really need Mark Keeler to do the same—it didn't help that every time he looked at the older man, he saw Mark's daughter and his heart began to beat just a little faster.

"Bullshit," Mark sneered, ire strengthening by the second. Sasha flinched a little. "You left because you're a coward. Tell me, Sasha, did you mean _anything _you told my daughter about taking her to London?"

"I left because I couldn't control myself around her!" Sasha spat. He had hardly even admitted it to himself, let alone out loud, to another person—the father of the girl for whom he had developed inappropriate feelings, and the man who looked more than ready to throw the first—and second, and probably third—punches. Mark opened his mouth to speak before closing it again. _What does that mean?_

"Excuse me?"

"I can't be around those girls. I can't… be around Payson." Sasha's voice dropped and he looked at the ground intently, suddenly fascinated by a beetle dodging stones like an obstacle course. He only looked up when Mark's shadow fell over him, just in time for his fist to connect with Sasha's jaw. Sasha stumbled backwards.

"I swear to God, Belov, if you _ever _laid a fucking finger on my daughter—"

Sasha made no attempt to return the punch and Mark made no attempt to back down. He reeled back a second time.

"My intentions regarding Payson have always been honourable; the moment any of that changed, I left." Sasha answered, spitting blood as he spoke. Mark's fist connected with his face a second time, this time catching the tip of his nose and sending a searing pain through his entire skull.

"You stay away from my daughter," he warned, backing away, shaking his hand. His knuckles were split and bloody; he made a note to fetch the first aid kit from the back of the car before climbing in and driving away. "You stay away."

Sasha watched Mark drive away. Blood dripped from his face, hitting the dusty ground with a soft, muted tap. Belatedly, he reached a hand to his nose to contain the spill, unsteadily shuffling back towards the cabin. His hike across the cliffs would have to wait. As he fished an ice pack from the freezer, he was surprised to realise his hand didn't ache the way he expected it to, considering the pain in his face. It was that realisation which led to another: he hadn't returned Mark Keeler's punches—he hadn't even tried. He hadn't attempted to defend himself because he had no defence. He was as guilty as sin, he told himself; he deserved each and every punch Mark Keeler threw his way. Mind reeling from Mark's visit, Sasha snatched his worn, dog-eared copy of _Dracula _from his library and took it to bed, propping himself against the pillows to immerse himself in someone else's world.

* * *

_to be continued._

* * *

AN: this was one of my favourite chapters to write - i knew i had three options regarding tying this story together and in the end i combined two and three - this was option two, three will come. thanks to my husband for helping me write people punching one another; i am woefully inexperienced in fisticuffs.


	5. v i was a stranger in the city

_v. I was a stranger in the city  
__the age of miracles hadn't passed  
__for suddenly I saw you there  
__and through foggy london town  
__the sun was shining everywhere  
__-a foggy day (in london town); michael bublé__  
_

London was damp and cool. People had warned her about it, but as she stepped out of the airport into English air, Payson shivered involuntarily and pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands. She climbed into the minibus with her teammates and stared out of the window as they rolled out of the suburbs and into the busy streets of London on their way to the Olympic Village. Payson cradled her gym bag—the bag she'd used as a carry-on for the flight—against her chest. Tucked into the side pocket were her most precious possessions: the photograph her mother had taken before Sasha had taken her to the ballet, and Sasha's Olympic gold medal. She fully intended to win all the gold medals on offer in London and she fully intended to make good on the loan agreement and return the older medal to its rightful owner.

The village was just as active and her teammates were just as distracted by it as she had expected. Focused and resolute, Payson remained in the room she shared with Kelly Parker, now an ally rather than enemy, unpacking her suitcase into the small cupboard and stack of drawers on her side of the room. The medal and photograph stayed tucked into the pocket of her gym bag, hidden but not forgotten. Payson flung herself onto the small bed and stared at the ceiling. _I'm here_, she thought to herself as though he could hear her. _I'm here and I did it without you. _

(xoxo)

Two days after he had watched the opening ceremony on the small hotel room television—the most bizarre, disjointed, ridiculous and yet somehow compelling spectacle celebrating England he had ever come across—the women's qualifying competition began. Hidden behind thousands of other spectators and conveniently beside a fire door for a speedy exit, Sasha watched, impatient, as all the girls who weren't his performed their routines. He bit back a smirk as China's greatest hope fell off the beam and Russia's star landed her vault on her face instead of her feet. One by one, the competition choked. Finally, a flash of blonde sprinted down the vault runway and flew through the air, hitting the horse with a resounding _slap _as she twisted and turned once, twice, three times in the air before landing on her feet, ramrod straight, arms in the air. Her name flashed into the top spot on the scoreboard. A grin split his face and he clapped so hard his hands ached.

By the end of the qualifying events, Payson had accrued the highest scores in all but one event and had qualified to all four event finals and the all-around final, as well as leading her teammates to the team final. Sasha had expected nothing less, but he had expected to see the smile he missed so fiercely plastered across her face. Instead, although the audience sat a hundred deep and several feet from the apparatus and the athletes, he could see nothing but emptiness in her eyes and the wan smile she gave her teammates made his stomach clench uncomfortably. _I did this. _

It was two days to the team final and another two to the all-around. The wait was torturous and the competition even more so; all the remaining athletes brought their A-games and Payson had to rally her team for pep talks between almost every rotation. He knew she couldn't see him—he'd intentionally chosen the seat most hidden by other spectators, furthest from the competition floor—but he smiled encouragingly. Payson's pep talks were better than those of anyone he knew—she would make a wonderful coach someday. He didn't know what she was saying to her team, but her expression was resolute and the other girls nodded, putting their hands in the centre of their circle and cheering for Team USA. His heart swelled a little with pride.

Whatever Payson said to her team worked. They stood on the top step, arms around each other's waists, hands filled with fragrant bouquets of flowers as heavy medals on thick ribbon hung around their necks. As far away as he sat, Sasha could see tears of unbridled joy and exhilaration in the eyes of every girl on the podium. The all-around final progressed in much the same way, although without the team pep-talks. Out of her team colours and in her signature purple, Payson looked older; Sasha could almost believe he had fallen for a grown woman, rather than the teenager, resplendent in her shimmering leotard under the stadium lights. Just as Sasha fully expected, Payson ended the final on the top step of the podium, with Kelly Parker on one side of her and a Russian gymnast on the other, crying tears more of relief than joy as she waved her second bouquet of flowers in front of the world.

_"Two down, four to go_," he whispered quietly to himself as he slipped out of the stadium amid all the applause, escaping quickly before he got caught up in the crowds and was spotted.

Three more days, three more events and three more gold medals later, the competition was drawing to a spectacular close. Sasha held his breath. Floor was the last event final in women's gymnastics. It seemed fitting that it should be the last event when the floor exercise was the one to set off the downward spiral of the last ten weeks. Sasha watched with nervous anticipation, tapping his feet on the ground as a Chinese gymnast who looked much younger than her supposed sixteen years stepped out of bounds and a Romanian gymnast overshot a tumbling pass and landed on her knees. Finally, the last competitor of the day—indeed, of the competition—was the only competitor he wanted to see.

A vision in purple, having saved her favourite leotard for the final event, she saluted the judges and took her place in the centre of the floor. Sasha's breath caught in his throat as he remembered how she'd challenged him when he changed her routine to begin in the middle of the floor. He noted her position and the opening strains of the music—she was still using the same routine they had choreographed and worked on together. All of her other routines had changed, and even this one boasted a higher degree of difficulty than he remembered—he realised why as she completed a tumbling pass much more intricate and advanced than he had seen in this routine—but the bare bones were the same. He felt energy radiating from her in waves. Tears shone in her eyes as she fell into her final pose—she had shared their story with the whole world, and as the rest of the stadium clambered to its feet in thunderous applause, Sasha sat, dumbstruck and completely in awe of the beautiful woman tearfully saluting the judges.

He didn't have to look at the scoreboard to know the result. A perfect ten for execution and not a single deduction had propelled Payson to the top step—again—and straight into the history books. Never before had a gymnast made a clean sweep of gold medals at the Olympics. He shook his head, smiling weakly—of course it would be Payson to break that record. She was the most talented and dedicated athlete he had ever known.

He stayed longer after this final—long enough to watch a quick interview on the competition floor with the BBC correspondents.

"Payson," the woman began, fizzing with excitement. "That was an incredible routine—you really told a story out there and we—the whole _world_ felt it. What story were you telling, who inspired you to perform such a beautiful routine?"

Payson stood silent for a few seconds, staring straight into the camera. The medal hung heavy around her neck and she gripped it tightly with her right hand, unwilling to let this one go.

Her answer was one no one expected. "Sasha Belov."

* * *

_to be continued._

* * *

AN: this chapter was so hard to write and the hardest to find a song for - I wanted the lyrics, more than the music itself, to help the story along a little and I eventually came across this old favourite. I really wanted Sasha to torture himself more, and whilst that didn't happen as explicitly as I'd hoped, reading back over this chapter I think it's a much more subtle, beautiful kind of torture.


	6. vi nothing heals me like you do

_vi. nothing heals me like you do  
__i'm coming, i'm coming home to you  
__i'm alive, i'm a mess  
__-london rain; heather nova__  
_

Her words were crushing. Standing to leave as she spoke, he stumbled backwards into the wall when he heard his name in response to the question. The agony in her eyes and the venom he could feel powering her every move—they were his fault. He had done that to her. Ten weeks ago, she had been one of the happiest people he had ever known—a smile for everyone, drive and determination by the bucket-load to keep her place at the top and open up a lead over the competition, a reigning champion defending her title on the biggest sporting stage in the world. Since he'd left, she was bitter and broken, wearied beyond her years. It was like a knife to the gut.

He watched as she left the competition floor, lifting her medal to the crowds, led by her coach and officials. Then, he joined the hordes of people shuffling slowly towards the exit doors. Half an hour later, he managed to escape relatively unscathed; no one seemed to have recognised him and the lady who stomped on his foot both apologised and did little damage. Stepping out into the crisp London air was blissful. Whilst most of his fellow spectators turned right towards the tube station, Sasha turned left, away from the crowds, passing the gaudily-decorated Ravensbourne University and walking down the narrow Thames Path to the river.

The Greenwich Peninsula had been one of Sasha's favourite spots for as long as he could remember—prior to his own Olympic success, it had been an eyesore ten minutes from the gym, a run-down site in the midst of major development, but that made it a sparsely-populated spot right by the river, perfect for brooding. Sitting on a bench near the pier, vaguely overlooking East India Dock on the river bend, he tried to make sense of the last ten weeks—from being afraid to look his office manager in the eye to sitting alone in London, watching murky brown water breathe in and out, in and out again, slapping against the concrete river bank of the North Greenwich Pier.

That was where she found him, staring out across London. Her hair hung to just below her shoulder blades in soft brown waves from her signature pigtail twists and she had changed from her competition attire into a pair of blue jeans and a thin cranberry sweater. She sat at the opposite end of the concrete block bench, her back facing his.

"I thought I saw you in there," she stated. Her voice was calm and even; it made him jump, he hadn't heard her approach. He didn't look round. "You're not very good at hiding, Belov."

"Didn't your mother ever teach you manners?" he asked after a few seconds of silence. He thought he heard her scoff lightly.

"Have you met Sheila? Besides, you're not my coach, I can say whatever the hell I want." This time, Sasha scoffed. "She doesn't know you're here," Kelly continued after a moment. It wasn't a question but a statement of fact. "I don't know whether I want to knock you out and kick your body into the river or drag you back to the village and lock the two of you in a room until you work out all your bullshit issues."

"How about you do neither, and we just walk away now and forget this conversation ever happened?" Sasha suggested, turning slightly. Kelly looked softer without the severe pigtails and competition make up. London had been good to her; she had equalled Payson's medals haul, although with the exception of team gold, hers were all silver and bronze—but his leaving had affected her too. She frowned, creases around her eyes aging her prematurely—she hadn't looked even half as tired before he left.

"Sasha, you can't just pretend she doesn't exist." Her stiff leather boots made it somewhat awkward, but Kelly mustered all her grace and pulled her feet onto the concrete, tucking them beneath her and spinning to face him fully. "She's already tried that and it's just making life miserable for the rest of us—frankly, it fucking sucks. I'm not going anywhere until you fix this."

Sasha barely blinked at Kelly's language. She sighed at his lack of response. "Sasha," she pleaded, soulful eyes wide. "She's broken. She needs you."

"She doesn't need me," he answered evenly, turning away to look across the river again. Kelly shuffled across the bench and swung her legs off the other side to sit next to him. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed. Delicate coconut assaulted his senses as the breeze ruffled Kelly's hair. He would recognise the scent anywhere—she had been using Payson's shampoo. He swallowed hard.

"Well if she doesn't, I'd hate to see her if she did. You know she hasn't been sleeping?" Kelly's voice remained nonchalant, belying the concern she felt for her teammate—her friend. "She won't talk to anyone. She hasn't smiled since you left."

Those words were his undoing. He stood quickly, almost quickly enough to make himself dizzy. He began to walk back towards the arena and Kelly jumped up after him, almost sprinting to keep up. She followed him down the escalator in the glowing blue tube station and onto a northbound train. He stood the entire journey, gripping a handrail by the door until his knuckles turned white. He spent the journey staring intently out of the window as London sped by, memories of living in the city flooding back. Kelly watched with mild concern, leaning against the opposite rail and studiously ignoring whispers from fellow passengers about the Team USA gym bag slung across her shoulders. She stared intently at the back of Sasha's head, for once content not to speak. She was watching the man self-destruct right in front of her.

At Stratford, he stepped off the train and Kelly raced after him, ducking and dodging passengers on the platform who clearly did not share their sense of urgency. She thought she had lost Sasha somewhere between the first escalator and the second, but as she finally approached ground level a familiar blonde head appeared, followed by a rough hand grabbing her by the arm and guiding her out of the crowd.

He strode away from the station complex, long strides carrying him towards the Olympic Village. He knew where to find it but not where to find _her_—Kelly pushed past him as he slowed to a crawl just outside the East Village gates. She flashed her athlete identity card to the guard on duty and dragged Sasha behind her. Out of sight of the gates, at the foot of a tall building, Kelly handed him a ring of keys and a card.

"She's in eight-oh-seven, seventh floor. Don't fuck this up, Belov, I swear to God they will never find your body."

* * *

_to be continued._

* * *

AN: this is one of the shortest chapters but easily one of my favourites. Initially, I had planned to feature only Sasha - Payson obviously worked her way in, and then Mark, but I never intended for Kelly to appear at all. But I was writing and suddenly she was there and it just worked. As an aside: this chapter is kind of special to me for its geographical content; that area of London is and always will be in my heart for some wonderful memories. Walking Sasha's path from the o2 Arena to Greenwich Pier and then the journey from North Greenwich to Stratford in my mind was a lot of fun!


	7. vii piecing my life together

_vii. i spent the last year piecing my life together  
__i will fall, i will fall if you come around  
__just when i think my heartbreak has settled down  
__i will fall, i will fall if you come around  
__-i will fall; clare bowen & sam palladio__  
_

The building smelled faintly of Deep Heat and perfumed sweat, as though someone had sprayed something sweet to try to mask the odour. Sasha counted the storeys as he climbed the stairs, slowing as he reached the fifth and taking his time to climb up through the sixth and seventh floors. He stopped outside her door, fist raised to knock. This was crazy. Just because she had won six gold medals didn't mean anything had changed—she was still thirteen years his junior, anything he felt for her was still wildly inappropriate—but oh, what he'd give for a smile.

That smile blinding him in his memory, his fist moved towards the wood of the door and collided with it once, twice, three times, before he could talk himself out of it. His breath caught as he heard a muffled shout from the other side, her voice was just as he remembered—warm honey and spice, wrapping around him like a blanket. That blanket was stripped from his shoulders not a moment later when she opened the door only to slam it again in his face.

He raised his fist to knock again but stopped short. She didn't want to see him—she slammed the door in his face, sure that was proof enough. Still, something compelled him to knock again, and just as his hand reached the door, it opened again. Payson stood on the other side, barefoot, wearing lilac cotton pyjama shorts and a matching tank top. Her hair was wrapped in a towel on top of her head and her eyes were red-rimmed, face wet with fresh tears. She was still the most beautiful woman Sasha had ever seen. She held out a round, gold disc hanging heavily from thick red ribbon—the medal he had loaned her two years before. She stood back from the door, silently inviting him in. He took the medal from her and closed the door behind him, following her gesturing arm to the low, hard sofa in the middle of the open-plan space. She sat opposite him, knees pulled up to her chest in a defensive pose. She didn't speak.

Sasha's mouth was dry. He swallowed, desperately trying to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, and he opened his mouth to speak twice before stopping. Finally, he said the only thought in his head. "I missed you."

Payson snorted derisively. "You _missed_ me? That's all you can say?"

Sasha looked at her helplessly. "What do you want me to say?"

"How about saying you're sorry for leaving me? How about you're sorry you almost killed my—all of our chances of getting here? How about going back ten weeks and just not leaving?" Payson exploded. Sasha winced as she shouted, tears coursing down her cheeks. He remembered what Kelly had said and surmised that this was probably the most Payson had said since he left Colorado.

"I'm sorry," he whispered feebly. "I'm so sorry, _iubită_."

Payson shuddered involuntarily as Sasha's native language rolled off his tongue like butterscotch. All she wanted to do was throw herself at him and not let go, but she couldn't—she had a silly, schoolgirl crush but that's all it was and all it could ever be. Suddenly exhausted, she sat back against the sofa.

"Payson," Sasha began again. "I spoke to Kelly…"

"What did she say?" Payson's head snapped up to look at him, stricken.

"She said a lot of things," Sasha said smoothly, fully intending to omit details of Kelly's death threats. "She said you haven't been yourself lately… she's worried about you, Pay, everyone is. I'm worried about you."

"Why did you go?" Payson changed the subject.

Sasha stared at his hands. "I couldn't stay," he said simply.

"But _why_?" Payson demanded, pleading, almost petulant. Sasha was suddenly reminded of the age difference between them and how young Payson still was.

"Payson, please," Sasha begged. His voice cracked. "Don't do this."

"Don't do what?" Payson continued, ignoring Sasha's pleas. "I have a right to know, Sasha, you left me and you left me this letter that's barely even English—Sasha, please," Payson imitated his pleading. "Please."

He looked up at her. Sometime during her impassioned plea, she had moved over to his sofa and knelt before him, resting against his leg. Four blue eyes locked together. Payson swallowed a gasp at the fire in Sasha's eyes; he stared at her with a burning intensity she had never seen before. Cautiously, she lifted a hand to his face. He flinched at the contact, reaching up his own hand to grasp hers. He broke their gaze, closing his eyes and turning his face into the palm of her hand to kiss it lightly.

"Sasha," she breathed. He lowered his head, their hands still grasped at his face. "I…"

"This is why I left," he whispered hoarsely. "I left because of this… we can't do this." He made no attempt to move. Payson scrambled to her feet and sat sideways in his lap. He inhaled sharply and she relaxed a little more, leaning back into his chest.

"You're not my coach anymore," she stated, tracing his jaw with a calloused finger. She knew she was pushing too hard. When he had kissed her hand, she had allowed herself to believe for a moment that her feelings were not entirely unrequited, but sitting on his lap and touching his face was an intimate gesture and one she knew was not hers to make.

"I'm thirty one, Payson," his voice cracked again. "You're just eighteen. You were learning to somersault while I was blowing my knee out weeks before the Olympics." He hadn't intended any harshness but he scoffed lightly and Payson flinched. Without thinking, Sasha brought his arms around her, one hand resting on her hip bone and the other on her knee. Her skin was warm and soft and the contact felt like a thousand static shocks through his body.

"I don't care," she whispered boldly.

Sasha sighed. She was—probably not entirely unintentionally—making this even more difficult for him. "I do," he insisted. "This will ruin your career."

"My career is over, Sasha," Payson scoffed. "I don't even have another training day in me, let alone another competition cycle."

"Your sponsors—"

"Can suck it," Payson interrupted. "I don't need them. I don't need any of that," she insisted, swallowing hard. "I just need—I just need you."

Sasha should have been thrilled to hear those words from her—they had been the words she had said in his dreams a hundred times since he left Boulder, and once or twice before then, too—but his jaw ached fiercely as he remembered Mark Keeler's fist and his threats. Payson shifted slightly in his lap and he tensed, clenching his jaw a few times. However much he wanted this, no matter how many of his dreams were playing out right now, he could not allow it to happen.

"Your parents…"

"I don't care, Sasha," Payson repeated. "You know they love you—"

"Your father most certainly does not 'love me', Payson." Sasha didn't say anything about Mark's visit to Cambria—he didn't know whether Payson knew about her father's trip, although he suspected she remained blissfully ignorant considering she was neither with him nor followed later.

"My mom loves you, and they know you and—"

"And I walked out on you, on all you Rock girls when you needed me the most. I can't imagine your mother still wants me to come over for Sunday lunch. Where are your parents, anyway?"

"Becca won tickets to the diving finals," Payson explained. "I, um, I haven't really seen them much since we've been here. That's not the point, Sasha, the point is this," she changed the subject again. Sasha looked at her questioningly, a hint of amusement in a slightly quirked eyebrow. "This," she repeated. "Us."

"Payson," he sighed. "There can be no 'us', you know that."

"No, I don't," she insisted, frowning. "Don't do this Sasha, please." His choice of words allowed Payson to entertain briefly the idea that her feelings might not be as one-sided as she had imagined. "Look me right in the eyes and tell me you don't want this."

"I—" Sasha began in a hoarse whisper. He blinked a few times. "I can't do that."

Payson shifted again, leaning down to kiss Sasha. He barely had time to react before her lips were crushing against his, her hands—toughened from a lifetime of training—caressed his face with a tenderness he had never dared imagine she possessed. All coherency and thoughts of propriety left his head as he allowed himself to be kissed, opening his mouth to allow her greater access. When the need to breathe became too much they broke apart, then she leaned in and kissed him again, a small peck on the lips.

For the first time in his life, Sasha was speechless.

They sat in comfortable silence for a little while—unlike when he had arrived, when the silence was filled with tension so thick Sasha felt he could hardly breathe. He stroked Payson's hip lightly with his thumb, pushing the cotton of her tank top out of the way to allow him access to milky skin. Payson rested her forehead against his, eyes closed and smiling. She was as relaxed and peaceful as he had ever seen her and despite the worries surrounding their relationship that still plagued him, he felt the same.

"So," he began huskily. "What happens now?"

Payson's smile grew wider. "Well, I think we should do more of this," she began, before kissing him quickly. "And then the world is our oyster."

"Pay…" Sasha began. His smile faded a little as he trailed off. "Are you sure about this? The press will—"

"Sasha, I don't _care _about the press, or what my parents think, or what anyone thinks—I love you, Sasha, that's enough. It should be enough. _Let it be enough._"

Sasha's heart soared at Payson's words, an admission beyond even the wildest of his dreams. Still, fear nagged at him, a hungry caterpillar preparing for chrysalis.

"Payson, you don't—"

"Don't you _dare, _Sasha." She interrupted angrily. "Don't you dare tell me I don't know what love is. Don't tell me I don't know how I feel."

"I would never presume to tell you anything of the sort, _iubită_," Sasha answered honestly. Payson's gaze was unavoidable—pale eyes pleading, piercing, angry and adoring all at the same time. _She loves me. _Sasha decided there and then to entrust Payson to his heart instead of his head, for the first time relinquishing control and allowing himself to freefall. His face broke into a grin so wide he wondered if it would split and his jaw began to ache.

"It's enough, _iubită,_" he whispered, kissing her again. "I love you. It's more than enough."

* * *

**Translations:  
**_iubită - sweetheart  
_(thank you, india!)_  
_

* * *

_fin._

* * *

AN: this is hands down the longest piece i've ever completed - ordinarily i am a one-shot queen with the occasional multi-chaptered piece just about reaching a couple of thousand words - but this is well over ten thousand and it took a lot of blood, sweat, tears and love and I'm so incredibly grateful to _everyone _who has left a review - it's good to know I'm not completely alone in the fandom, I was definitely concerned about the quietness!

This chapter's song and most of the others all feature on one of my Pay/Sasha playlists (I have two, please don't judge me) - I highly recommend them if you're looking for inspiration. I'd also like to take a moment to acknowledge the age difference I've stated between Payson and Sasha (thirteen years) and then point out that according to Mark Keeler in episode three, Sasha competed and beat Marty to gold in Atlanta in 1996 which means at the very minimum, Sasha must be at least fourteen years older than Payson. But it's canon he competed and medalled in Sydney, isn't it? Did the show make a continuity error, or is he really just an awesome double Olympian? (I'll exchange your answers for a virtual cookie.)


End file.
